On screen layout reduction in screen area FM13

Summary

On screen layout reduction in screen area FM13

Product

FileMaker Pro

Version

13

Operating system version

Windows 7

Description of the issue

On migrating from Filemaker 12 to Filemaker 13 we have found the display of all the layouts on screen has now changed.
The layouts, which in Filemaker 12 would fit within the extents of our 24' monitors now extents past the screen edge.
Yet the layout scale setting has not changed and is 100%

If the rulers are turned on it indicates there has been a reduction in screen area.
Filemaker 12(approx 65cm x 34cm)
Filemaker 13 (approx 59cm x 31cm)

Also the layouts appear slightly pixelated in Filemaker 13, as if there is some degree of zooming being applied

Steps to reproduce the problem

Create a layout in Filemaker 12 that fits the extents of the monitor.
Now open in Filemaker 13

Expected result

Layout should fit monitor screen size

Actual result

Layout now extents past screen extents and objects appear slightly pixelated as if some degree of zooming is being applied

FileMaker Pro 13 looks at custom DPI settings. If you have high-DPI settings for your monitor, try changing this to "default" or "normal" setting when using FileMaker Pro 13. For more information, please see Knowledge Base Article #13089 at:

FileMaker Pro 13 looks at custom DPI settings. If you have high-DPI settings for your monitor, try changing this to "default" or "normal" setting when using FileMaker Pro 13. For more information, please see Knowledge Base Article #13089 at:

It turns out the laptop that I used for developement was set at 125% dpi. If I reset it to 100% than the layouts in fm13 are OK, but the fonts in Windows and the Filemaker menus are somewhat smaller and harder to read. Is this a bug that is going to be fixed? Or is this the way it is suppose to be?

I've been reading this thread over several times and have done my own tests on my Windows 7 system to see if I am fully understanding this issue. But I must still be missing some key detail here.

If you set the display to 125% or more then this will increase the size of everything from every application that displays data on your monitor. If I set the display to 125%, everything in my FileMaker layout is larger and that would, by definition, result in layouts that previously filled the screen at 100% no longer fitting within the screen limits when I change the setting to 125%, if all other settings that can affect this are kept the same.

In fact, I routinely mix and match the settings in this control panel with "enlarge contents to improve readability" and also with the percent zoom setting in the FIleMaker window to optimize the displays for each computer we use--where there is quite a bit of variation in screen size and resolution from one machine to the other and where we have a number of layouts originally created many years ago when screen resolutions/sizes were much less than today. (a start up script uses a preferences table to set different percent zooms on different machines...). I've also removed all "auto-size anchors" on one layout so that the layout objects stay centered on the screen and small differences between displays result in small differences in the amount of "open space" around the edges of the layout...

I designed a solution in FM12 on a laptop with a screen resolution of 1920x1080. I designed the layouts to completely fill the available height of the workspace. So now If I open this solution in FM13 the layouts get approxomately 25% larger and I can no longer see the complete layout on my screen without scrolling.

Your solution for this is for me to reset the DPI setting from 125% (which BTW is the default in win7) to 100%.

While this does reset the layouts back to their FM12 size all the fonts that are displayed by the OS including the Filemaker 13 menus are now 25% smaller and difficult to read.

Let me ask you the following question, what was the display resolution for the images used in your example?

I would say that it all depends on the resolution you are using. The higher the resolution the bigger the "issue".

Have you tried redoing your example using a 2048 x 1152 or higher resolution and see how it looks like?

To me it is absurd that a higher resolution equals smaller font size for the user.

I can understand that technically this is the way it works but it is useless from the point of view of the user.

The trend should be higher resolution = less eye strain = customizable font size as per user needs.

Yes, the main culprit of al this is the OS, but it gets crazier when program makers like Filemaker join the group of "illuminati" that determine font size based on DPI settings of 100% no matter what the display resolution is and what effect it has on the user ability to read the resulting tiny fonts.

It's is hard to understand why FMI introduces more roadblocks for developpers with each new upgrade.

If this wasn't an issue with FileMaker Pro 12 why changing with FM Pro 13?

If the answer is because it makes sense technically, then it makes no sense from the point of view of the user.

I thought that technological development was meant to meet consumer needs and not the other way around.

Your solution for this is for me to reset the DPI setting from 125% (which BTW is the default in win7) to 100%.

Well it's not my solution, I don't work for FileMaker Inc.

Please note that I have no desire to argue with you or to convince you that this is not an issue. I'm just trying to understand it so that I can take this issue into account with my own work with FileMaker database projects.

What I'm not seeing is fonts that are "25% smaller". Yes, they are 25% smaller at the 100% display setting than at the 125% setting, but if I open the same file in FileMaker 12 with the same exact settings, I see the same font sizes there that I see with the file open in FileMaker 13. The attached screen shot shows screen captures combined from images captured from FileMaker 11, 12 and 13 with Display and zoom settings at 100% in each case.

I will, however, see a difference if I move a file to a different computer or connect a monitor with different pixel dimensions. This is nothing new, from the earliest versions of FileMaker, this has presented a challenge for developers and we've asked for better options for dealing with this issue. The autosize anchors and the "enlarge window contents" options that have been added over the years, offer some help with this, but only some. It is not uncommon for developers to have to design additional layouts in order to cope with display setting variations and to also have to accept design compromises that result in layouts that don't perfectly "fit" the screen on every computer.

My personal feature request in this area would be the ability to group layout objects and then be able to specify auto-size anchors that "stretch/compress" the object sizes as the window size changes, but as a group--with consistent spacing and no overlapping objects produced by the size change.

You are correct if DPI is set at 100% both FM12 and FM13 behave the same. However when you open them both with DPI set at 125% Fm13, will enlarge the layouts by 25%. compared to FM12.

If you go into the control panel Display option you will notice under the DPI setting that 125% is the WINDOWS DEFAULT. The reason for that, is that a setting of 100% reduces the size of EVERTYHING on your computer to a size most users would not be comfortable with. It seems that with FM13 Filemaker wants to force a user to switch to a DPI setting of 100% which I am not willing to do. If I want to keep a 125% Dpi setting with FM13, I would have to resize all my layouts and basically lose 25% of screen real estate.

An entry in the Known Bugs List has been linked to this Issue Report. Any Comments/Questions/Suggested Corrections should be posted here or in a new thread. Please do not post such comments to the Known Bugs List thread.